


I Love You Way More Than Coffee

by captor_of_mytuna



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint is a human wreck, Clint needs Coffee, College AU, F/M, Group Projects are awful, Natasha enjoys teasing Clint, Postgrad researcher Scott is my new life, Scott Lang is even more of a disaster than Clint, The Clint Barton as an engineer au no one asked for, except me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 15:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7469598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captor_of_mytuna/pseuds/captor_of_mytuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Project deadlines lead to an exhausted Clint and an exhausted Clint leads to word mix-ups, Natasha enjoys watching the fallout and Scott's experiments have a tendency to blow up</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Love You Way More Than Coffee

Clint Barton sat alone in the cafeteria with at least 5 textbooks open around him spread across the table and his laptop open, looking more than a little bit haggard. The cafeteria was pretty empty, nowhere near as full as the library would be at both this time of day and this time of year. It was currently 10am on a Monday morning and Clint was skipping class. Being fair it wasn’t like Clint had the best track record for attendance in the world, but he felt justified today, his design project was due next week, his life was crumbling around him and he wasn’t really missing much by not turning up to maths. Clint was beginning to suspect that he actually smelled of coffee as he was sure that it was beginning to seep through his pores through osmosis or some shit. 

He saw Scott pretty much run past the canteen, probably on his way to the labs, also to probably stop something from blowing up. He heard a crash as Scott presumably attempted to jump down half the stairs leading to the main part of the university and fell instead; Clint wasn’t too worried he’d dust himself off and continue walk-running again. Scott was a postgrad electrical engineering student, who seemed to do nothing but damage control in the labs. He was working on some shrinking tech thing (Clint had really only ever half-listened to anything Scott said regarding his work, he was a chemical engineer and therefore had no time for electronics) with Dr Pym. The two of them got on like a house on fire, and occasionally their academic work literally resulted in fire. At any rate, Scott always seemed to be running back and forth from the labs, it was getting so bad that Clint had both suggested he just live there and was keeping a tally. At least Scott was doing something, unlike Clint who was now staring into space. 

Design work was so boring, he’d already done all the math work, the drawings, the diagrams and the health and safety stuff; now it was time for him to write it all up into the report and send it to the rest of his group. The rest of them had planned to just leave it until the last minute, but Clint had been through that last year: never again. That was why he was in this current predicament, fiddling with excel spreadsheets and staring at an almost empty word document. It was almost laughable how little motivation he had left to actually finish the project after months of work, it was ridiculous. 

Quarter past came by quickly and an influx of people came past the canteen, he spotted half his course-mates making their way towards their next class, some of them giving him a wave as they went by. He saw Tony and Ben walk past, heading towards another mechanical engineering lecture, in Clint’s, always correct, opinion mech eng sucked. He saw Steve and Wade heading towards their art classes, Steve looked stressed, Wade not so much, they most likely had deadlines just the same as him. It quietened down shortly afterwards, everyone either going to their next class or heading to the library. 

“You look like you could use more coffee, or maybe a shower Clint,” Natasha had snuck up behind him, looking fresh and well rested far unlike any student had a right to be. She definitely looked far more put together than Clint did; her auburn hair cascaded down her back in long waves, her face looked radiant, she clearly had had a good night’s sleep and she was dressed in simple yet stylish clothes. Contrast that to Clint who’s bags under his eyes had bags, his hair hadn’t even been brushed in literal days, he smelled of coffee and his wardrobe consisted of a three days old grey plaid shirt, worn sneakers and his comfiest (holey) jeans.

Clint lay his head against the desk and groaned out, “Coffee, I need coffee,” stretching the ‘e’ out as long as possible. 

“Good thing I know you so well then,” she placed a cup of heavenly brew on the table, it’s smell wafting into Clint’s nostrils, he could practically taste the caffeine on his tongue already.

“You’re the best Nat, I love you so much,” Clint’s head snapped up from the table, he had meant to say coffee, not you, he hastily began trying to spit out anything to backtrack or just try and play it cool. When he’d first met her he’d had a crush on Natasha Romanov, she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen and she was witty too. But over the years he’d gotten to know all of the facets that made up Natasha, he was absolutely smitten with her. He could honestly say that he was in love with her. He knew though that she only saw him as a friend, and to be perfectly honest he was happy to leave it at that, she meant the world to him and if he wasn’t the right person for her then he wasn’t. But he didn’t want to blurt it out like this! He was such an idiot. And to think that if he had just not started stuttering and backtracking that his slip up would have remained unobtrusive as to not be noticeable. 

Natasha was smirking at him, “Took you long enough, who knew that bringing coffee was all that it would take.” She looked like the cat that had caught the canary, watching Clint stutter and turn a brilliant vibrant red, staining across his numerous freckles. She calmly sat down opposite him at the table and set out all of her books, still smirking. Clint was still gawking at her, his mouth opening and closing but no sound was coming out no matter how much he willed his brain into action. “I’ve known about your crush for years Clint, was just waiting to see how long it would take for you to gather up the courage to say something, or slip up. You’ve lasted longer than I’d expected you too,” she said with a laugh. 

“Wait what?” Clint wanted to bury his head in the deepest pit imaginable and scream, this was his worst nightmare, he must be asleep that was it. The coursework was getting to him, it was driving him insane and this was just a coffee fuelled intervention of his mind telling him to get more rest, that was it. 

“Clint, you’re putting me off studying, you’re not the only one skipping class to get some work done.” She wasn’t even looking at him anymore, her notepad was out and she was furiously writing what Clint presumed were notes of some kind, he couldn’t tell. Clint shook his head a bit and with some resolve just decided that denial was going to be the dish of the day. 

“Sorry Nat, I think the caffeine’s just getting to me,” he said still from his position from the table. He pushed himself up to give a weak grin at Natasha, “I’ve had too little sleep, I think it’s starting to get to me.” 

“You’re telling me. I’m beginning to dream in three languages now, it’s getting quite intense,” she stopped writing to gesture at the mountain of pristine hand written notes she had spread across the table. Clint was envious, it wasn’t fair that her handwriting was so much neater than his. He tried damn it, but all of his notes were still pretty much illegible. 

“I thought you still had that assignment thingie to do?” He asked, confused at the absence of the linguist’s tablet. 

“Handed that in this morning, I am pretty much home free now until exams.”

“Then why are you skipping…?”

“Russian? Come on Clint, I am Russian, there is literally no point in me attending that class.” Clint still had no idea why she’d decided to take Russian as one of her classes, especially when she was fluent in Russian and had no intentions of actually showing up to class. But hey, Clint wasn’t going to judge. “When do you think you’ll be finished writing yours up?” She gestured towards his laptop. 

“Probably never, you know how it is, I’m probably just gonna go bury myself somewhere on campus.” 

“What if I gave you an incentive?” She stopped writing, to look up at him and smirk again. 

“…What kind of incentive?” 

“If you finish before Friday you can pick what we do in celebration, if you finish after Friday I pick,” Clint shuddered at the thought of Natasha picking an activity, her idea of a good time was the theatre or the ballet or, and he shuddered even more at this, the opera. Clint’s idea of a good time was the cinema, or like the pub; you know, simple things. He didn’t see the harm in the bet anyway, it would give him some motivation at least. 

“Deal, you can bet your ass that this is going to be done before Friday, I’ve got like three days it’s only Monday!” 

“You’ve got four days dimwit.”

“Nah, only three, today’s like half done already.”

“Then it’s a date. Can’t wait to see you lose Clint,” she was still wearing that damned smirk, Clint just narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Hey! I’m so going to win; I can’t wait to see you in the dingiest sports bar I can possibly find.” 

“That’s not going to happen, you’re going to lose and you’ll have to accompany me to see Macbeth next week, with no complaining like usual.” 

“Nu-uh, even if I do lose there is no way that I wouldn’t complain through that shit. It’s so boring.” 

“I’d just have to gag you, then you’d have to sit in silence.” 

“You’d be deprived of my sparkling personality though, then what would you do?” He threw a grin her way, he loved arguing with her.

“Actually enjoy myself for once?” He fake-recoiled at that remark, it didn’t really hurt, but he had to put on a show to keep up appearances. 

“Ouch Nat, ouch. I am forever wounded by this slight.” He put his hand against his head and pretended to swoon backwards. 

“Who knew Hawkeye would be such a drama queen?” That wasn’t fair, using the nickname he’d told her in confidence over an innocent game of truth or dare. Okay he’d been  
spectacularly drunk when he’d told her the story of how he’d earned the name when he’d shot his gym teacher with an arrow during an, in his opinion, ill-advised Phys Ed lesson. 

“I can’t believe you’re rolling out the old nicknames on me, Black Widow.” It was his time to smirk as he used his knowledge of her old gymnastics nickname; all the nicknames on the team were all spider themed for some reason which just struck Clint as a little bit bizarre to be honest. She rolled her eyes at him, reaching out to grab her books from the desk. 

“You’re so distracting Clint, can’t get any work done with you mouthing off.” She said breezily, packing her books into the stylish brown leather satchel that matched her tan leather jacket. Clint was sad to see her go, he always loved talking to her, even when he was blurting stuff out. 

“And to answer the question I think your brain was trying to supply you with earlier, I love you too Clint and I expect you to take me out on a date at some point soon. No sports bars, and if you suggest the cinema I really will turn into a spider and end you.” She laughed at him, giving him a rare genuine smile. Clint had never felt so shocked and happy at the same time in his entire life, he felt as if he was going to burst from all the overwhelming feelings building up inside him. He could tell that his face had probably gone a brilliant shade of red again, he couldn’t help it okay. 

Natasha stood up from the chair, swinging her bag over her shoulder and fixing her jacket, before she walked around the table and bent down to give Clint a light kiss on the cheek. He felt as though he was soaring as he sat there dumbly, not able to even process anything beyond his best friend kissing him on the cheek. 

“I’ll see you later Clint, hope you plan something nice,” she called back across the canteen as she was already halfway across it before Clint came back to his senses. He waved cheerily at her, a broad grin on his face. He’d never been so happy in his entire life. Now back to the hell that was university coursework, there was no way he was losing this bet; Natasha better start praying.

**Author's Note:**

> Back again with more Clint/Natasha! I got the idea off of the prompt "- we’re both skipping class to study for a different class" - which basically describes my entire university life so far.  
> Clint Barton would also make the best chemical engineer by the way as we're all human disasters fueled by coffee and stuck in a loop of procrastination and group projects  
> Also I just had to throw Scott in there, I can't help it he's my fav


End file.
